When it comes to getting his projects approved, Morton Grove Mayor Dan DiMaria will resort to anything he pleases to be sure they get approval. There are two recent large projects in Morton Grove. One is the restaurant Moretti’s on Dempster and the other is a large condo complex on Waukegan Road. In both cases, a traffic study was either not done, or hushed up to make it appear that there will be no problems with the increase of cars and people at the two proposed sites. Both sites are adjacent to heavily traveled roads that are already a problem in traffic movement, especially at rush hours.
With 400 patrons at Moretti’s trying to get in and out of the restaurant and the increased condo residents trying to get in and out of Waukegan Road, it spells a traffic snarl.
Besides the traffic problem, the village has bypassed several zoning laws for the condo project, including a height forgiveness of over 30 feet, making this building a towering edifice in an otherwise low profile character of Dempster. Parking will be a problem for both the restaurant and the condo, and the neighboring properties will suffer along with the patrons and residents. These projects are way over-sized and should be downsized to match the available access points and property sizes.
Of course, we cannot expect the trustees to speak out on this manner, as they are part of the one-party system here in Morton Grove that always votes unanimously on the mayor’s proposals. They never even discuss anything at village board meetings and rubber stamp all ordinances. The village can save money if we just eliminate the trustee positions and let the mayor pass his legislation unhindered as he is doing anyways.
Despite protestations of openness, the village hall has not been upfront with their projects by keeping notice of their progress out of the newspapers until they are done deals. Most residents do not understand the implications of these deals. Morton Grove owes over $80 million in pension funding and several million on the failed Waukegan Road TIF development, yet the mayor is giving Moretti’s and the condo people a few million dollars of TIF money to entice them to build here.
With the sweetheart deals he is giving them, it will be years before the village recoups anything of these give-a-ways. That TIF money should be used for eliminating blighted areas of which the two project sites do not really qualify for that. Any TIF money not used when it closes should be returned back to the village facilities, like the schools, if it hasn’t all been spent on these enticements.
We need to attract businesses that are not over-sized and require expensive enticements.
Sherwin Dubren, Morton Grove